Should we change the laws for cyclists?

How many times have you had to ram the car brakes because someone on a bicycle blew through a stop sign? Or, since bicyclists outnumber drivers in SF during some parts of the day, and can be a little menacing on Critical Mass days, I should ask it the other way: if you confess you ignore stop lights and signs on your cycle, and I’ve seen it happen a million times, how often have you almost been taken out by a car that expected you to behave like a motorist?

What are the stopping rules, anyway? Are they the same for motor and non-motor? Do enough people know that it matters? Should they be different when we’re all sharing the same asphalt?

The SF Metropolitan Transportation Commission is considering today, even as we post, a “stop and roll” rule for cyclists. That means, I gather, that you still have to yield to a car at a stop sign if you see one and stop only momentarily at a red light. So, it’s like a yellow light. Only it’s red for everyone else. Got that?

But, human behavior being what it is, “stop and roll” probably means “roll” a lot more than it does “stop.” It’s like posting the speed limit at 65; everyone assumes they really mean 70.

Is this a Green initiative? Because if it is, we ought to be also linking in the Neptune Society. And there’s the issue that bicyclists just get exhausted stopping every block and starting again. But is that harder than humping up Hayes St.?

So should we give bicyclists different rules for the same turf? (After all, motorcyclists have their outside-the-law thing. They can split lanes for convenience and because they’re skinny enough, and that’s always seemed dangerous as hell to me as a former motorbiker.)

A few years ago, cars running red lights and signs was a big problem here. Pedestrians were getting smashed like dishes in “The Godfather” when Connie goes nuts. At places like Franklin St., where car-crazed hotshots tried to pretend the lights were synchronized to 35 when it was really about 20, casualties mounted. Whack! Hello Mr. Bill.

The streets are road warriorville anyway. Whatever happened to the double parking crackdowns 1 through 26? And those folks on Eddy who wander into moving traffic like Patrick Swayve in “Ghost.”

Just remember, wherever you ride in this debate, might still tends to make right when it comes down to it.